Once upon a time I thought I was a Yo-yo Man. I was half the yo-yo duo The King’s Yomen, I lived a summer off the string in Chicago, and at one time I was offered $25,000/year to yo-yo full time.
Apparently all that was mistaken, because I suck.
Watch this video of crazy Japanese yo-yo guys (link via kottke.org). You’ll probably need a broadband connection because the video is close to 10 minutes long. We’re talking two-handed psycho yo-yo action, and that’s just a warm-up. The video was taken from the 2003 Japan National Yo-yo Contest, and most of it appears to just be practicing and goofing off. Amazing.
Feel free to leave every dorky comment about too much free time I ever heard in the comments section.
The video doesn’t load. Actually… it appears to load extremely, extremely slowly. I sat and waited, and it got to buffering 1%, and then 2% a while later, and then I gave up.
I’ll try again later. :-)
OK that is some insane yo-yo-ing. Who would’ve thought that yo-yo was popular with Japanese youth?! These crazy sub-cultures that were formerly unknown are now suddenly accessible via the Internet. Fascinating stuff. OK if you have too much free time, then apparently I do too ;-)